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[tiamatschild.livejournal.com]

A short piece of May Gamgee/Pearl Took oddness. Written for Gilly.


A Pretty Thing

Tiamat’s Child

Pearl has always liked pretty things.

She’s always been willing to do just about anything to have a pretty thing. Willing to kill, willing to steal, willing to lie. Pretty things are worth any of it.

But now she’s just met the prettiest thing she’s ever seen, a sun-browned girl with sandy hair and a kind smile, and she can’t think of any way to get this pretty for her own. May Gamgee seems to be beyond her reach. There’s no way she can ask for her, and no way she can steal her, and no way she can think of to lure her in. How do you get a person for your own? Pearl doesn’t know. But as May turns around from the tap, holding out the mug of ale to her brother Sam, she smiles and Pearl understands that there must be a way, as May seems to have her already.

Sam thanks his sister and is pulled away by Rosie Cotton, her laughter bright in the air. May leans across the table and grins at Pearl. “Want to dance with me?” She asks, and Pearl stares because this isn’t the way things go, she always has to catch the pretty things, they never reach out and catch her- of course she’s never tried to catch a pretty thing which was a person before-

“What? But…” And the rest of anything she might have said trails off because she didn’t mean to say no, even if it wasn’t a real no, and she wants to dance, it’s a party, one of Cousin Bilbo’s and no one can throw a party the way he can, which is a good thing, really, but still, it’s special, and lovely, and she’d like nothing better than to dance with May.

“Oh please?” May says, “Everybody’s dancing with everybody else, and the tap can go unguarded for a while. Look, there’s Sam and Rosie and Mister Frodo.” Pearl looks, and it’s true, the three of them are dancing some sort of jig for three, each of them trying to outdo the other two. To Pearl, it looks as if Frodo is winning. Pearl turns away from them and nods to May.

“Yes.”

And then May is grabbing her hand and tugging her onto the floor, spinning her around in a dance that doesn’t seem to be more than a second or so old, something conjured on the spot. Pearl’s having trouble breathing because May is stunning, and soft, and warm this close up. Besides, Pearl is moving so fast she’s dizzy, and she thinks she might fall if it weren’t for May’s strong hands holding her up.

They seemed to have danced to the edges of the field and the lights, and Pearl stumbles when May settles her hand into a firmer hold around Pearl’s wrist, and runs up the hill behind it, and back down again, to a little grove by the stream. “May?” Pearl is confused and excited and scared and the last time she felt this good was when she stole one of her mother’s silver spoons because it was just too beautiful not to and besides, it hurt not to have it in her hand.

“Shhh…” May whispers, and gently pushes Pearl down into the grass. “We’ll be left alone here.”

“May?”

And then Pearl has her answer, because May lies down beside her and kisses her and Pearl’s never felt anything that made her eyes spark like that. Pearl twines her arms around May and kisses back, and she is stunned to find that she doesn’t have to do anything that would make her brother sad if he found out to have May. Nothing at all.

After a while May lets go, and stands up, and carefully undoes her clothes. She glows like the inside of a shell in the dim light, and Pearl knows that she was right. May is the prettiest, prettiest thing she’s ever seen.

And Pearl is all hers.